It is generally known that two or more constituent materials can be mixed to obtain a composition in which the constituents are substantially completely dispersed so as to yield a homogenous final composition of predefined character. Such practices may be carried out by known equipment such as screw extruders and blade blenders and yield extruded or batch compositions of generally consistent non-alterable morphology. The properties of such compositions are thus defined almost exclusively by the compositional character of the blended material without regard to structure. That is, the dispersed individual constituents are not controlled in a manner to impart particular desired structural characteristics.
It has been proposed to use so-called smart blenders based on chaotic advection (also known as chaotic mixing) to produce controlled morphological characteristics within a resulting extrudate. Such systems are disclosed, for example, in my U.S. Pat. No. 6,770,340, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. As will be appreciated, unlike mixers such as screw extruders and the like that do not have as a goal the formation of specific structures among material components, blenders based on chaotic advection operate to stretch and fold the constituents within the compositional blend to progressively develop a defined sequence of physical structures that are retained within the blend composition following extrusion. Thus, by controlling the degree of blending, predefined morphological characteristics may be achieved within an extrudate formed from the blend composition.